Sun City mothers share experiences with adoption and foster care

Mother’s Day is a celebration of women. And these celebrations don’t all look the same.

Cindy Ptak married Mike in 1972 and they both wanted to have children in their life together. After a few years, they decided to adopt.

Cindy said, “Back then people thought of us as wonderful people for considering adoption. But it was our dream and we were the lucky ones to be able to adopt a child.”

In 1981 they were blessed to bring home a baby girl.

“The minute we received her we began to worry. We had worries like all parents about her health and safety, but we were worried that she would be taken away from us. At that time there was a news story featuring a little boy taken away from his adoptive parents while crying for them and returned to the birth mother. I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind,” Cindy said.

How did she celebrate that first Mother’s Day?

Cindy said, “We usually celebrated Mother’s Day with a family dinner with Mike’s mom, my mother and for my first Mother’s Day we did the same. It was a blur. I was tired like most mothers with a new baby, but it was a Mother’s Day I didn’t cry because I was finally a mother.”

Cindy and Mike had another dream come true a few years later. Cindy said, “I got pregnant five years later and we had a baby boy. I didn’t tell anyone for six months, I wanted to be sure it was going to happen. We were meant to have him.”

What are her feelings this Mother’s Day?

“We have our Miracle Children. We were the lucky ones,” she said.

Pat and Steve Henning were married two years when Steve tragically lost his legs in an accident.

Pat said, “We wanted to have children, but we couldn’t have any. We decided to adopt and we went through Juvenile Court Services and we had our first son, Sean. We got our second baby two years later, a baby girl, Kelli.”

That was the beginning of the story.

Pat said, “The courts came to us for help. They were in desperate need of Foster parents for teenage girls who had run away from home. We opened our home to them.”

How many children did they foster?

Pat said, “Throughout the years we enjoyed being parents to over 200 foster children. I have photographs of all of them. I knew I would remember and think of them throughout the years. We would at times have 8 children we were caring for. We had to expand our home to a two-story with 5 bedrooms.”

Did they adopt any more children?

“Yes, we had a six-year-old boy whose family had all died from Huntington’s disease. His great-grandmother had been taking care of him, but she was unable to care for him any longer. So, Bud came into our lives.”

Pat became so involved with the Foster Program that she eventually starting working for the Department of Children and Family Services as a Master Foster Parent. She would train Foster Parents entering the program.

The Hennings adopted two more children. Pat said, “We added to our family Julli and Keelyn. Keelyn was a baby of a 16-year-old foster child.”

Do they have any contact with any of the two-hundred foster children?

“Yes, Facebook has been great for that. My husband walked two of them down the aisle for their wedding. I reconnected with Laura, after 30 years and she recognized me immediately. I was so surprised but she just smiled and said how could I forget how my mom looked.” Pat said.

Every mother is amazing in her way. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

---